


Until It's Too Late

by toyhto



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Limbo, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 21:41:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19894774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toyhto/pseuds/toyhto
Summary: It’s hell, living in a place that doesn’t have rules. Maybe that’s why he’s made himself a few, one of which is: don’t fuck Eames.





	Until It's Too Late

**Author's Note:**

> I'm pretty excited about this story! At first this was going to be about how, in limbo, Arthur has time to find the courage to fall in love with Eames. But. I don't know what happened, this story changed when I was writing it and in the end I'm not sure what it's about, which is just how it should be. I think this is a little angsty but then again, I don't know. There's something both terrible and impossibly lovely about spending an endless time with someone you might love.
> 
> You can also find me on [tumblr](http://toyhto.tumblr.com)!

They’re at the airport in Los Angeles, waiting for the luggage. Everyone else is already gone or maybe they weren’t here at all, not this time. People around them don’t have faces and anyway, Arthur’s not looking. He can feel Eames walking to him, though, he can sense it in the way his shoulders tense.  
  
“Never recreate places from your memories,” Eames says quietly but it cuts clearly through the background noise, cuts through the constant humming in Arthur’s mind. “Are you running out of inspiration?”  
  
“Don’t,” he says.  
  
“I remember thinking,” Eames says, coming closer to him, “that maybe I could text you. Maybe I could call you. You wouldn’t tell me where you’d be staying but you’d drop a few hints and I’d make a good guess. Then I would rent a car and come to see you. You’d be out of the city, in a crappy-looking motel somewhere at the side of the highway, you know, the kind where your lot go to cheat your wives in movies. I’d knock on the door. You’d open. You’d be holding the gun behind your back but you’d put it away when you’d see it’s me. Don’t look at me like that, you would.”  
  
“I never trusted you.”  
  
“Right,” Eames says, sounding a little sad, “that might be true. But this is my fantasy. You’d be drinking whiskey and to be honest, you’d be a little wasted already. No time like the present, you know.”  
  
“I hate that saying.”  
  
“That’s because you like to postpone everything. Preferably until it’s too late.”  
  
Arthur shifts his weight from one foot to other. He’s tired. He doesn’t know if it’s supposed to happen here. He never asked Cobb about that.  
  
“Anyway,” Eames says in a voice too light, “I’d ask if you could give me some whiskey. You’d glare at me, a little like you’re glaring at me now. It’d be brilliant. I’d be quite ready to jump on you at that point, but I’d want to play it cool, because you’d look like you were still wondering whether you want to shoot me or fuck me.”  
  
Arthur clears his throat. “A motel at the side of the highway?”  
  
“Yeah,” Eames says, and now there’s hope in his voice, which is the worst, definitely the worst. Maybe Arthur’s addicted. It’s terrible that Eames still has that hope and it’s terrible that in the end it’s going to make them both break into the pieces. The higher the cliff, the worse it hurts when you finally hit the ground, or something like that. But every time Eames sounds like that, it throws Arthur off-balance, and he needs more.  
  
So, he closes his eyes.  
  
When he opens them, they’re in a room that’s awfully small and smells of dusty fabric. Through the window he can see an empty highway. Nothing is moving outside the room.  
  
“You’re getting better,” Eames says in a quiet voice. Admiration. Not as bad as hope.  
  
“Do you like it?”  
  
“The bed could be narrower,” Eames says, “for the atmosphere.”  
  
Arthur glances at the bed. Two people would fit in it easily. Not as easily if one of them had Eames’ shoulders. “Really?”  
  
“Just a little, darling.”  
  
He’s asked Eames not to call him darling. It’s like hope, it goes straight through his skin and one day he’s going to be fucked. _But darling_ , Eames said to him _, we’re already fucked._  
  
“Just like that,” Eames says, watching the bed. It’s narrower now.  
  
“You really think you’re going to get me there?”  
  
“I don’t know. Let’s see. So, where was I? You’re wasted and I’m trying to catch up.”  
  
“I can’t dream myself being wasted.”  
  
“Too bad. You could at least try. Pretend that you don’t loathe me and all that.”  
  
“I don’t…”  
  
“I know, I know.” Eames sits down in a creaking armchair. “So, I drink some. And I sit down in a chair like this, nicely, when you hover there in the furthest corner trying not to look like you don’t have a bloody clue what to do with me.”  
  
Arthur tries to stop hovering but it’s a little difficult. “Well, I don’t know what do with you.”  
  
“And isn’t it marvelous that now you have all the time to find out,” Eames says, sad and tired, but then he somehow manages to drop it again, stands up and walks to Arthur. “When I’m drunk enough, I walk to you. Like this. Slowly, and you think about running but don’t.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Isn’t that obvious? Because you’ve been dying to fuck me through this goddamn job. Ever since Cob brought me from Mombasa for your delight.”  
  
Arthur bites his lip. “I don’t know where you get all that confidence.”  
  
“It’s just desperation, darling, really,” Eames says and stops in front of him, far enough that he could slip away, close enough that he can’t do it without their arms brushing against each other. “And you’re always confident that this is a bad idea.”  
  
“Yes. Because it is.”  
  
“Even now?”  
  
Arthur takes a deep breath. Now, they have nothing but time. But it’s probably never been worse of an idea than it is now. If they end up hating each other, they’re going to go crazy in here. They probably will anyway. But, still.  
  
“Because I genuinely like you,” Eames says, his voice barely audible. The fridge Arthur dreamed is humming loudly. “You know that. Trust me.”  
  
“I can’t.”  
  
“Why not? You’re so good at everything else.”  
  
“I don’t know.” Arthur looks over Eames’ shoulder, at the narrow bed. “I’m a coward.”  
  
“Yeah,” Eames says, “I know, darling. But I’ll be waiting for you. It’s not like I’m going to go anywhere.”  
  
“Don’t say things like that. That’s terrible.”  
  
“That’s the point of it,” Eames says and takes a step back. Arthur feels oddly adrift. “It’s the bright side. We can make terrible jokes about this and they sound like bad aphorisms. Or sappy song titles.”  
  
“I hate those.”  
  
“I bet you do,” Eames says, then walks to the window and stares at the highway. “Can you at least sleep with me? I mean, next to me? You can make the bed bigger if you want.”  
  
Arthur swallows. Something’s stuck in his throat, but then again, something’s always stuck in his throat when he and Eames talk about this. “What’s the point?”  
  
“I know we aren’t going to cuddle,” Eames says, “because that’s below your standards or something, but I’d like to, I don’t know. Maybe brush our shoulders together.”  
  
“Eames.”  
  
“Listen, I know how stupid it sounds, alright? I just want to feel you breathing.”  
  
Arthur opens his mouth but there’s nothing he can say to that, is there? He turns off the light using the switch, then walks to the bed, sits down and starts taking off his shoes. Eames looks a little shocked for a second, then the mattress shifts when Eames sits down on the other side of the bed and starts undressing. Even here, even when they’re only pretending to sleep, it’s somehow more comfortable not to wear clothes. Arthur folds his shirt on the back of the chair and then lies down on the bed. He should widen it, but he doesn’t bother. Eames lays down next to him, his arm warm and solid against Arthur’s.  
  
“Thank you,” Eames says.  
  
“Go to sleep, Mr. Eames.”  
  
“Funny.”  
  
It’s really not.  
  
  
**  
  
It’s the only thing Arthur swore he’d never do.  
  
Well, there’re quite a few that are obvious. He never wanted to get involved in anything that includes hurting children. Sexual violence is definitely out of the question, no matter if it’s in a dream or not. And he’s not going to kill anyone unless it’s for self-defense. Things like that.  
  
But after Mal died and he watched Cobb slowly turning into someone else, he swore he’d never get stuck in limbo.  
  
“It’s not your fault,” Eames kept saying for what felt like weeks, only they don’t really _have_ weeks anymore, do they? And Arthur blamed himself anyway. It was the only way to make sense of what had happened. He had ignored the risk. He had let it happen. And now he and Eames would be stuck in here until the kick.  
  
Of course, he’s tried to count how much time that is, until the kick. But there’re no facts, only assumptions, and he hates having to rely on assumptions. Perhaps time doesn’t even exist here. Perhaps when the kick comes, they’ve lost their minds already and don’t remember how to wake up.  
  
“At least we’re here together,” Eames said when he wasn’t saying that it wasn’t Arthur’s fault. They kept walking at the endless shore, the sea washing onto their feet, and Arthur was so fucking scared he couldn’t think, couldn’t think anything except that thank God Eames was with him. Thank God he wasn’t in limbo alone. Thank God Eames kept talking to him in his low hoarse voice, kept telling him it wasn’t his fault, kept reminding him who they were. And he hated himself so much for being happy that Eames was stuck with him.  
  
It turned out Eames could barely build anything, so that’s what Arthur’s been doing these past weeks, months, years, whatever they are. They can’t be years. He’s been trying to keep track but there’re no clocks. He can dream them but he’s going to have to dream the seconds, too, and what if he gets them wrong?  
  
It can’t have been years, though. Maybe months. Two or three months.  
  
He’s been building them a little world in here. He’s getting better at it. Maybe that’s because he’s beginning to forget how things were in the real world. Maybe, in the end, he can change the gravity easily like Ariadne used to do. Like Ariadne _does._ Ariadne’s still alive, awake, somewhere. He needs to remember that. Ariadne’s still alive and brilliant and can do anything she wants, not like Arthur, who can’t make himself not follow the rules.  
  
It’s hell, living in a place that doesn’t have rules. Maybe that’s why he’s made himself a few, one of which is _don’t fuck Eames._  
  
  
**  
  
  
“I can’t understand why you won’t just fuck me.”  
  
“I can’t understand why you keep bringing that up,” Arthur says, and Eames laughs. It sounds awful. They’re at home, as they call the first house Arthur built here. It’s a bad joke, to call it a home, and Arthur can’t remember who started it, but neither of them says aloud how stupid that is, and so it goes on and on. This is their home now. It’s a little like Arthur’s house in Chicago, which sometimes makes him so homesick he thinks he’s going to either throw up or cry and doesn’t know which would be worse. It has two big bedrooms, one for him and one for Eames, both upstairs, two bathrooms, and a balcony with a view Arthur’s working on. Eames’ bedroom has a huge window on the ceiling. Arthur hates it because there’s no _sky_ , there’s just emptiness that looks like the sky, but Eames asked for a window on the ceiling, and if Arthur can do things for him, small things, he’s happy to.  
  
He’s not going to do this, though.  
  
“Don’t you miss it?” Eames says in a small voice. They’re sitting in the living room, which luckily isn’t like Arthur’s living room in Chicago, because Eames kept bothering him about the colors of the furniture until he fixed them to make Eames happy. Now everything is awfully colorful and it’s making this at least a little easier. They have television but there’s nothing on it, and a bookshelf with books with no words in them. The carpet feels warm under Arthur’s feet if he has the strength to focus on imagining it. He usually doesn’t.  
  
“Of course I miss it,” he says to Eames, who’s being stubborn and should know better. They’ve talked about this before. Surely Eames could find better things to do with his eternity than to keep bothering Arthur about sex.  
  
Or maybe not.  
  
“Because I miss it,” Eames says, “I miss touching someone, a human being, I miss _skin_ , I miss the warmth of it, and the scent. You know how happy I get when you let me, I don’t know, pat you on the shoulder. Or hold my hand on your neck for a second. It’s not even about _sex_ , really. If you could just take your clothes off and let me lie down with you, I wouldn’t touch anything you wouldn’t want me to, I mean, I could keep hands off your cock, Arthur, I’d just lie there and hold you and touch your chest or stomach or something. It’d be so good. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want to touch me?”  
  
Maybe this is the worst thing. “I can’t.”  
  
“You can but you won’t. And I’ve told you, I like you, I really like you, I liked you when we were awake, in the real world, and I like you know, even though you’re being an asshole about it. I _like_ you. If we’d been different people, not working together, or if we had had a bit less… issues, I’d have asked you to go on a date with me. For real. I don’t want just anyone, I want _you._ Let me undress you, Arthur, just let me –“  
  
“No,” Arthur says. It’d be better if he could make it sound like he means it, but there’s nothing he can do about that, apparently.  
  
“I won’t do anything you don’t want me to.”  
  
“Eames,” he says and takes a deep breath. “It’s not that I don’t want to.”  
  
“Yeah, it is.”  
  
“No, it isn’t. It’s… I wouldn’t _want_ you to keep your hands off my… cock.”  
  
“You can’t say it, not even here,” Eames says, his voice lighter for a second, “you can’t say _cock._ ”  
  
“I can,” Arthur says and clears his throat. “It’s not that I wouldn’t want you to touch my cock.”  
  
Eames stands up.  
  
Arthur only takes a step back, but judging by the look on Eames’ face, he could’ve kicked Eames on the stomach just as well.  
  
“I can’t lose you,” he says. “You’re the only thing that’s real in here.”  
  
“You aren’t going to lose me,” Eames says.  
  
“I lose everyone I sleep with. That’s the rule.”  
  
“There’re no rules in this place.”  
  
“I just can’t take the risk.”  
  
“Fine,” Eames says, turning and walking to the stairs, “ _fine._ I’ll go to the bathroom to jerk myself off. And I’m not going to bother locking the door because I know you aren’t going to come join me.”  
  
Arthur stays in the living room, standing on the carpet that feels like nothing, staring at the furniture colored in a way Eames wanted. It’s awful, really. No decoration magazine would ever want to have a photoshoot at their home.  
  
He tries to count seconds until five minutes is gone, but there’s no way to know, is there? When he stops at the end of the stairs, there’re no sounds coming from the bathroom, nothing he’d expect to hear, maybe low grunts because surely that’s what Eames sounds like. Not that Arthur’s been imagining it. He walks to the bathroom door and means to knock but it’s already ajar.  
  
“Eames?”  
  
“Just come in. You’re late, anyway.”  
  
Arthur pushes the door open. Eames is sitting on the floor in the corner. He’s not wearing trousers, but he has his underpants on, and socks, and the terrible t-shirt he claims was his favorite from 2003 to 2009. Arthur sits down next to him, close enough that Eames could touch him if he wanted to, maybe pat him on the knee. There’s no reason to let Eames think Arthur couldn’t stand his touch, after all.  
  
“I don’t know how you do that,” Arthur says, staring at the tiles on the wall. He’s probably seen them in someone else’s bathroom a long time ago. “I can’t.”  
  
“What? You can’t jerk off?”  
  
“Not in here.”  
  
Eames takes a long breath. “It’s not… it’s not the same. It kind of works out as it should, only there’s no cum, and it doesn’t feel as good, it feels… like I’m only imagining it. It’s good before I come, though.”  
  
“I suppose I don’t have imagination,” Arthur says. “Especially when it comes to sex.”  
  
“If you’re worried that you’d be bad in bed,” Eames says, “don’t. We have nothing but time now. I’d be happy to spend it trying to figure out what you like.”  
  
“Sometimes I think _I_ don’t even know what I like. Pathetic, isn’t it?”  
  
“No, it’s a challenge,” Eames says, “great, that’s exactly what we need.”  
  
“I think I’m going to lose my mind.”  
  
Eames takes a deep breath, then slowly raises his hand and places his palm on Arthur’s knee. Arthur doesn’t flinch. “You shouldn’t worry about that. Worrying isn’t going to stop it from happening.”  
  
Arthur covers Eames’ hand with his own. Eames’ fingers are warm and steady and more real than anything else in here.  
  
“I’m not going to break your heart, Arthur.”  
  
“You can’t promise that,” Arthur says. Promising isn’t going to stop it from happening.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“Oh, Arthur,” Eames says in a voice so delighted it feels wrong, “it wasn’t like this. Not at all.”  
  
“You forget that I came here twice. After the Fischer job.”  
  
“Yeah,” Eames says slowly, “no. Just, no. You remember it all wrong. My place in Mombasa was bigger and cooler than this, and there wasn’t a _cat._ ”  
  
“Yes, there was,” Arthur says, “I slept on the couch and when I woke up, there was a cat sitting on my stomach.”  
  
“The window must’ve been open,” Eames says, still grinning. He walks through the room, kicking empty glass bottles on the floor as he walks by. They rattle. The carpet is dark green and has a stain on it, the couch is orange. Eames sits on it. “But I remember you sleeping here. You said you were doing a job nearby.”  
  
“I _was._ ”  
  
“But then you texted me and wanted to get drunk with me in the evening and slept at my place.”  
  
“I was too drunk to get back to my hotel. I regretted it bitterly, of course.”  
  
“Of course. Did you notice that I tried to get you sleep with me?”  
  
Arthur blinks. “No.”  
  
“I did,” Eames says in a soft voice that doesn’t fit the room, “I flirted with you the whole night, I tried all my best stuff, like, I had my hand on your back half of the time and you just kept looking at me like you were wondering what the fuck was wrong with my hand.”  
  
“I wasn’t… I couldn’t have been…”  
  
“You were oblivious,” Eames says, “just admit it. And while you’re at it, you might as well admit that you _wanted_ to sleep with me, you only didn’t realize it was on the table.”  
  
“You could’ve _said_ something.”  
  
“I _said_ ,” Eames says, “I said _Arthur, darling, you don’t have to sleep on the couch. You can sleep in my bed. There’s plenty of room for the both of us. And I bet you smell lovely.”  
  
_Arthur swallows. He kind of remembers that, he just thought Eames was kidding.  
  
“You thought I was kidding,” Eames says, irritatingly gently. “In the morning I said something like _Arthur, you don’t have to leave. Let’s go to bed. I’ll blow you._ And you laughed your most nervous laugh and fucked off and didn’t come back for a year.”  
  
“You can’t just say things like that to me.”  
  
“Too blunt for you? I’ve tried subtle and I’ve tried blunt and nothing works.”  
  
Arthur clears his throat. “I’m not very good at this.”  
  
“Clearly not,” Eames says easily. “Well, I’m terrible too, just in a different way, so we make a good couple, don’t we?”  
  
“We aren’t a couple.”  
  
“Until we wake up,” Eames says, “it’s going to be just the two of us in the whole fucking world. I don’t think it matters which label you put on it.”  
  
“Of course it matters.”  
  
“But what I want to know,” Eames says and pats on the cushions, “is what did you think about it? When you were sleeping here, I mean, when you were drunk and slept at my place in Mombasa? Did you think about that I was in the bedroom, right there, probably thinking about you, probably thinking about fucking you?”  
  
“I can’t remember.”  
  
“Liar.”  
  
“I didn’t jerk off, though. I’d have never. Not when you could’ve come in any time.”  
  
“Too bad. I would’ve been delighted.” Eames takes a deep breath. “Do you think we ever had a chance?”  
  
“At what?”  
  
“I mean, was there ever a moment when it was possible, a moment when, if I had come to you and said, I don’t know, _Arthur, I like you, would you kiss me_ , you would’ve said yes?”  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
“Me, neither. I keep thinking, maybe, but I can’t figure out when.”  
  
Arthur sits down in the closest chair. The flat is too quiet, so quiet he can hear them breathing, but he can’t dream the sounds of Mombasa right now.  
  
“Or maybe it was that at the right time, we were in the wrong places. We travelled a lot, Arthur.”  
  
“Comes with the job.”  
  
“Yeah, like being lonely. Is that what you think? That you can’t have both, the job and someone to hold onto?”  
  
“Seems that I can’t have neither anymore.”  
  
“I’m right there,” Eames says and looks at him. He looks back. Time passes, or so he wants to believe, and finally Eames clears his throat and stands up. “Well, then. Thank you for this flat. I think I’m going to come here once in a while to think about you not jerking off on that couch. Now, I think I’m going to go home and see how many poems I have memorized. I should probably write them down. Do we have paper and pen?”  
  
“In my bedroom, in the drawer.”  
  
“I can go to your bedroom without you watching over my shoulder?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“How nice,” Eames says and walks to the door. “See you later.”  
  
“Yeah,” Arthur says, _later_ , they’re going to have plenty of that. Then Eames goes and he stays, sitting in the silent room. It’s much more difficult to imagine it being real now that Eames isn’t there with him.  
  
  
**  
  
He finds Eames at home, sitting in the living room, looking more than a little drunk. He closes the door and walks closer, and Eames glances at him and grunts, sounding as drunk as he looks.  
  
“Arthur,” he says, leaning back on the sofa until he looks like he’s going to fall onto the floor. “Arthur, you came.”  
  
“How did you do that?” Arthur asks. He can’t go to sit down on the sofa next to Eames, because Eames would surely do something, like, perhaps place his hand on Arthur’s knee. And he can’t sit down anywhere else, because Eames is already looking at him with the wounded look on his eyes.  
  
“What?” Eames asks. “What, Arthur?”  
  
“You got drunk. It’s not possible in here.”  
  
Eames laughs in an unhappy voice. “I make my own rules.”  
  
“But –“  
  
“I’m not actually drunk, Arthur,” Eames says, and it’s infuriating that he says Arthur’s name like that, softly, slowly, like he’s _tasting_ it on his tongue. It’s infuriating that he keeps saying Arthur’s name fucking _all the time_ , watching Arthur like that, like Arthur has something he wants. Like Arthur _is_ something he wants, more than anything. It’s _unfair._ “I’m just imagining. I have a great imagination, you know. Like, I can imagine you coming over here and pulling off your clothes, well, I wouldn’t know how to undress you, there’re so many buttons in there, but I could find out. You could sit in my lap. It’d be _glorious._ You could… Don’t you want that? Arthur?”  
  
“You can’t get yourself drunk by imagining it.”  
  
“I’ve been drunk so many times,” Eames says and laughs, “ _so many times._ I remember what it feels like.”  
  
“That’s stupid.”  
  
“ _You_ are stupid,” Eames says, his voice suddenly smug. Arthur bites back the smile. What an imaginative insult. And Eames seems to realize it wasn’t, because his eyes go soft and he takes a deep breath. “Okay. Fine. What’re you going to do? What’re you planning to do next, since you aren’t coming over here to sit with me?”  
  
Arthur stays quiet for a moment. Then he walks to Eames and sits down on the sofa next to him, slowly. Eames stays still but there’s a smile lingering on the corner of his mouth, happy and sad at the same time. It’s the same smile Eames always uses on Arthur. Down here, at least. And it’s becoming difficult to remember anything else.  
  
“Perfect,” Eames says, clearing his throat.  
  
“Okay,” Arthur says. “What’re we going to do?”  
  
Eames closes his eyes. “Tell me something.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“ _Something._ Like, I don’t know. Tell me a story. Tell me what happens when we get out of here.”  
  
“Eames –“  
  
Eames snorts. “Shut up. I don’t want your usual bullshit, _Eames, we aren’t going to get out of here,_ or _Eames, I’m going to lose my mind_ , or _Eames, there’re no clocks, I can’t count minutes and it’s unbearable because all my life, the only thing that’s brought me joy has been counting minutes._ Darling, I _know._ Just, tell me a happy story.”  
  
“A happy story about how we get out of here.”  
  
“Yeah.” Eames glances at him, briefly, and then shuts his eyes again. “I’ll start. We wake up. You look confused. Your hair is a mess. You look at me and then realize there’re wrinkles in your suit and it demands your attention right away, so you rush to the toilet to take care of the situation. I don’t know how. I don’t have a clue. Maybe it’s magic. I wouldn’t be surprised. But then, later, we meet in a hallway.”  
  
“In a hallway?”  
  
“Yeah. On the way out.”  
  
“I ask you for dinner.”  
  
Eames flinches, opens his eyes, and stares at Arthur. “What?”  
  
“You wanted a happy story.”  
  
“Oh. _Oh._ Yeah.”  
  
“So,” Arthur says, when Eames’ eyes are closed again, “I ask you for dinner. You smile at me so smugly that I kind of want to take it back right away and, you know, maybe punch you in the face.”  
  
“Yeah,” Eames says and snorts. “But you would never.”  
  
“Not before dinner, at least. Well, anyway. You say yes.”  
  
“Obviously.”  
  
Arthur shifts his feet on the floor. Eames got to choose the color for the rug but it’s surprisingly nice. Maybe Arthur’s sense of style has begun to crumble with his skill of self-preservation. “Yeah. But I can’t figure out if you mean it as a joke or not.”  
  
“Arthur –“  
  
“We take a taxi. I pick a restaurant. You complain about it, I mean, you complain about it until we’re there, and then you shut up.”  
  
Eames looks surprised. “Why?”  
  
“Because it’s not a restaurant. Not exactly. It’s, I don’t know. It’s a pub. You thought I’d take you somewhere posh. But instead, we’re sitting at this tiny table in the corner in a pub, and it’s so dark you can’t even see if I –“  
  
“If you what?” Eames asks in a hungry voice.  
  
“If I blush.”  
  
“Oh.” Eames laughs a little, breathlessly. “You’re good at this. Keep going.”  
  
“We eat fish and chips. With our fingers. You lick yours all the time and it’s so unhygienic, utterly revolting.”  
  
“You’ve thought about this before.”  
  
“Absolutely not. So, you lick your fingers and I focus on eating because the food is great. Really great. Can you remember what food taste likes?”  
  
“Not really,” Eames says. “Don’t ruin the mood, Arthur. Stick to the story.”  
  
“Fine. So, we drink a little. Two glasses of wine, maybe.”  
  
“That’s how much it takes you to bear a date with me? I thought it’d take more.”  
  
“I don’t want to do anything I’d regret later.”  
  
“Oh, but you _do._ ”  
  
Arthur is silent for a while. He’s sitting closer to Eames now, somehow. Maybe he dreamed the sofa smaller. Eames is warm in the way nothing else in this place is. “When we’ve eaten, we sit there for a while. You tell me stupid jokes probably because you don’t know what else to say.”  
  
“Sounds about right.”  
  
“They’re a little dirty.”  
  
“A _little?_ ”  
  
“Yeah. I don’t know why. Maybe you’re nervous.”  
  
“Yeah,” Eames says with a sigh, “I would be. I like you, Arthur.”  
  
“I’m telling you a story.”  
  
“That’s a part of the story. I like you. That’s why I keep telling you dirty jokes. And I’m goddamn _furious_ that I can’t see you blush in the dim light of the pub you chose, you asshole. I want to see you blush at my jokes, because then I could think that maybe, maybe you like me back.”  
  
“You know that I like you.”  
  
“Yeah, but… you were never going to do anything about it.”  
  
Arthur shifts on the sofa. There’s probably something wrong with the cushions, because he ends up leaning against Eames, against Eames’ left arm and shoulder.  
  
“Maybe not,” he says, glancing at Eames. Eames is watching him now, not looking drunk at all, but maybe a little frozen.  
  
“You’re so incredibly stupid,” Eames says in a very soft voice and wriggles his arm out of where it’s pushed in between their sides, places it on the back of the sofa and lets his hand rest on Arthur’s shoulder. “Alright?”  
  
“I don’t know what happens next.”  
  
“Now?” Eames says, his thumb brushing against Arthur’s throat.  
  
“In the story.”  
  
“Oh. Okay. Well, we leave the pub, obviously. Then we stand there in the side of the street, waiting for a taxi, and you look like you want to get into my pants but don’t know how. You look very ridiculous, Arthur, just standing there and trying to look like you don’t like me at all. But I know better. Only I’m afraid that if I say something, you’re going to freak out and fuck off.”  
  
“But then I ask where you are staying.”  
  
“Really?” Eames asks, his thumb brushing Arthur’s chin. Arthur closes his eyes.  
  
“Yeah. I think I’m going to be awkward about it, though.”  
  
“I bet. But I’m going to tell you anyway. Can I take you there?”  
  
“Yeah. But, you know. The sex isn’t guaranteed.”  
  
“It never is,” Eames says, his breath warm on Arthur’s neck. “That’s fine. Can I kiss you?”  
  
“We should maybe have a few drinks at first. From your minibar. Maybe we could just sit down and talk –“  
  
“No. I meant, can I kiss you now?”  
  
_No,_ Arthur thinks. Absolutely not. There’s no way it’s going to end well. It was never going to end well, and now that they aren’t running out of time, now that there’s no _time_ to run out of, it’s been too late all along. He can’t face being stuck in limbo and it’s going to be so much worse when he gets his heart broken. “Eames.”  
  
“Okay,” Eames says, pushing his fingers through Arthur’s hair. “I’ll just be here, then. It’s not like I don’t have time to wait.”  
  
“These things never go well. For me. In the end.”  
  
“Someone broke your heart,” Eames says. Arthur should hate him for saying things like that, for talking about Arthur’s fucking _heart._ But he keeps running his fingers through Arthur’s hair, pressing his fingertips against Arthur’s scalp. “I’d shoot them for you, darling. If I could.”  
  
“That’s not necessary.”  
  
“So, that’s why you won’t kiss me. Because you’ve had your heart broken and it almost killed you and you don’t have the guts to take a risk again.”  
  
“I thought we were negotiating about fucking,” Arthur says, but his voice comes out strained. “Not kissing.”  
  
“Well,” Eames says slowly, “either one is fine with me. But, you know. It’s easy to say, _Arthur, why don’t you fuck me._ It’s a lot less easy to ask you to kiss me.”  
  
“I don’t see how that’s easy. I’d never say _Eames, why don’t you fuck me._ ”  
  
Eames laughs. “That’s too bad.”  
  
“I’d never say it because I think you might.”  
  
“You’re damn right, darling.”  
  
“And then you’d be over me.”  
  
“Darling,” Eames says, stroking his hair, “ _darling._ Have a little faith in me.”  
  
“I don’t.”  
  
“Have a little faith in yourself, then.”  
  
“I can’t,” Arthur says and turns to look at Eames. They’re too close. Eames’ skin is too warm, it’s making Arthur feel a little light-headed, and they’re both fully dressed. Arthur’s wearing a goddamn _tie._ And his heart is beating like crazy, and his breathing is getting a little ragged, and his hand shakes a little when he places it on Eames’ thigh. “I have evidence.”  
  
“So, you had your heart broken,” Eames says, his eyes flickering to Arthur’s hand and back to Arthur’s face, “so what? We’ve all been there.”  
  
“It’s terrible.”  
  
“Life is terrible.”  
  
“That’s just -,” Arthur clears his throat. “That’s kind of true, actually.”  
  
“I’ll tell you a story,” Eames says. “When we get out of here, we’re going to be so accustomed to being together that when you go to your hotel room and take a bath and try to enjoy the fact that you’re alone for the first time in a fucking lifetime, you can’t. You’re going to miss me like I’m your missing limb or something. And I’m going to miss you. So, I’m going to come over. And we’re going to fuck and kiss and all that and not say a word about how _obvious_ it is that we’re going to have to stick with each other. But I don’t mind. Arthur, I don’t mind, because even though this is such a stupid way of getting together, it’s going to do the trick. And if anyone ever tries to hurt you, I’ll be there to fight them, and you’re going to be so embarrassed because I’ll be nasty and loud and very unsophisticated about it. But I’ll have your back. And, I don’t know, I’m going to take you to Mombasa to see that you remember my place in there all wrong.”  
  
“It’s too hot in Mombasa,” Arthur says, breathless.  
  
“I should think it’s too hot in Mombasa,” Eames says, “I’m from _England._ ”  
  
“I think I love you,” Arthur says.  
  
“You goddamn idiot,” Eames says and kisses him.  
  
  
**  
  
  
He tries to take it back. _I love you_. What was he thinking? What the fucking hell was he thinking? But every time he opens his mouth to say something about it, Eames kisses him firmly enough that he drops the words. And that goes on for uncountable number of minutes, on the sofa in their home in a place that doesn’t exist. Eames is surprisingly nice about it, doesn’t tease Arthur about the way he kisses, even though it’s been a while and Arthur never felt he was a good kisser in the first place. He doesn’t have the _imagination._ And he doesn’t have faith. But Eames keeps kissing him anyway, running his fingers on Arthur’s neck and on his back and not even fucking trying to undress him, which is getting slightly irritating, actually. Not that Arthur _wants_ to be naked. But it seems like something Eames would want. Eames would want to fuck him and then forget about it.  
  
“Stop thinking,” Eames says. “We have time.”  
  
Arthur tries to say that this is a bad idea. He tries to say that he’ll fuck Eames, he’ll let Eames fuck him, whatever Eames wants, if Eames promises he’s going to stick around. If Eames promises that however long they’re staying in limbo, he’s going to talk to Arthur, banter with Arthur, be with Arthur.  
  
“You’re brilliant,” Eames says, kissing the unsaid words out of Arthur’s mouth, “you’re the best. Sometimes when I jerk off, I imagine you there, looking at me with your disapproving face, frowning fiercely, you’re the only one who can _do_ that, and I thought I’d never have a chance.”  
  
“You imagine me looking –“  
  
“Well,” Eames says, grabbing Arthur’s face with both hands and kissing his throat sloppily, “I’m a bit odd. I thought you knew. I like your disapproving face. And gladly, that’s the face you’re always giving me.”  
  
“You’re stupid.”  
  
“Yes,” Eames says, “yes, I most certainly am. I’m the stupidest man in the world. Arthur, could I undo your tie?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Oh, God,” Eames says, his fingers brushing against the skin on Arthur’s throat. “You really must love me.”  
  
“About that –“  
  
“It’s fine, darling. Just stay there. And be quiet.”  
  
Arthur tries to take a breath. “You don’t have a clue how to undo a tie, do you?”  
  
“I _do_. My fingers are just clumsy.”  
  
“I’ll do it.”  
  
“No, no,” Eames says quickly, “I’ve had fantasies about this. Stay still.”  
  
“Eames –“  
  
“Yeah, darling,” Eames says, finally managing to pull the tie off, “I know. You’re worried. You’re very worried about everything. Now breathe a little and let me do this.”  
  
“I don’t take it well when people leave me. It’s terrible. I’m going to be a mess and I hate being a mess, I can’t stand it, it’s unbearable. I don’t know how to deal with it.”  
  
“I know. Don’t worry.”  
  
“I _can’t_ not worry.”  
  
“I _know,_ ” Eames says, unbuttoning Arthur’s shirt.  
  
“I hate this. I hate that I feel I can’t control… that if something goes wrong, I’ll be…”  
  
“I love you, too,” Eames says, pushing the shirt off from Arthur’s shoulders. “So, don’t worry. I’ll be as much of a wreck as you. We’re going to have to fix each other.”  
  
“But what if we can’t –“  
  
“What if the sky falls down,” Eames says, kissing down on Arthur’s chest.  
  
“There’s no sky in here.”  
  
“Arthur,” Eames says to Arthur’s stomach, “I’m going to take off your trousers, unless you tell me not to. And then I think, maybe a hand job. A nice, little hand job. You aren’t going to be worried about it at all.”  
  
Arthur almost laughs. “I’m going to, though.”  
  
“You’re so fucking brilliant at it,” Eames says, his voice warm, “at worrying.”  
  
“You’re crap at it.”  
  
“Yes,” Eames says, undoing Arthur’s zipper. “Now shut up, darling.”  
  
It’s good.  
  
Arthur can’t come, but it’s good anyway.  
  
It’s Eames’ warm hands all over him, Eames’ mouth in places he never would’ve thought he’d wanted Eames mouth to be, Eames’ stupidly colored sofa creaking underneath them, until eventually they crumble to the floor. Eames is laughing, out of breath, eyes fixed on Arthur, legs sprawled on the floor, and when Arthur blows him, he comes with low moans that fill Arthur with pleasant haze of wondering why the hell he didn’t know Eames would sound like that. It feels real. Everything feels real, especially the terror.  
  
“Don’t,” Eames says, when they’re lying on the floor, naked and entangled, Arthur’s nose in the crook of Eames neck, Eames’ hands low on Arthur’s back, firm like Eames has decided to hold onto him. “Don’t think about what could go wrong.”  
  
Arthur closes his eyes but can’t stop.  
  
  
**  
  
  
Arthur builds a train and a railway that takes it to the sea. _Planning to get hit by that?_ Eames says, watching him. _You know we won’t wake up_. Arthur doesn’t say anything, doesn’t say he’s thinking about Mal, doesn’t say he’s having trouble remembering what Mal was like, what Dom was like, what James and Philippa were like, what anyone was like up there.  
  
Later, he and Eames take the train to the sea, sit in an empty, soundless train car closer to each other than is necessary. Eames doesn’t ask why Arthur wants to do this. Maybe he knows that Arthur couldn’t answer. At the sea, the wind pushes the hair from their faces and goes through their clothes and Arthur keeps thinking that it must be a trap, the wind that feels like a wind. Then he thinks that maybe he’s forgotten about what the wind feels like. There’s no way to know, after all. Maybe this wind is as real as he can get it, maybe anything in this place is becoming more real than his crumbling memories.  
  
He stares at the sea for a while and starts shivering even though it’s not cold in here. It can’t be cold. Maybe he’s never going to be cold again. But Eames comes to stand close to him and then, without asking, puts his arms around him, holding Arthur by his waist, his lips brushing against Arthur’s ear. It’s good that he doesn’t ask, because Arthur would try to say no.  
  
No, no, _no._ Like an anchor in a sea without a floor.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“Darling,” Eames says, when they’re in bed, pretending that they can still sleep, eyes closed, breathing steady, the edge of thoughts blurring away, Arthur’s nose brushing against Eames’ neck, Eames’ fingers lazy in his hair.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“I can’t imagine it anymore,” Eames says in a quiet voice, but there’s nothing else in here. He could speak without a sound and Arthur would hear him. “I can’t imagine that you didn’t want me. Up there.”  
  
“I wanted you.”  
  
“No, you didn’t,” Eames says, pulling him closer, “maybe because you thought I wasn’t being serious. But you didn’t want to take a risk. You _didn’t._ ”  
  
“Eames –“  
  
“Even though you didn’t have anything to be afraid of. Not really. Not up there. Because up there, you could’ve gotten rid of me if you wanted. You could’ve met other people and forget about me. You could’ve, I don’t know. Grown old and died.”  
  
“Maybe,” Arthur begins, because he’s been thinking about this a lot: maybe limbo isn’t so different after all. Maybe they’re going to grow old and, finally, die, he and Eames, in this world that’s a lot like the world up there, only they are here alone. Maybe, if this is as real as it’s ever going to get for them, they should just call it _real._  
  
“You’d have never taken a risk,” Eames says, his mouth wet and sloppy on Arthur’s temple, on the corner of Arthur’s left eye. “Not for real.”  
  
“You don’t know that.”  
  
“I know you.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Arthur says.  
  
“I can’t understand why I fell in love with you,” Eames says, “with you of all people.”  
  
Arthur almost laughs. “All people?”  
  
“I mean, up there. Up there, I had _choices._ I was, I don’t know, not as handsome as some but handsome enough. And charming. I could be really charming if I wanted, Arthur. I could _read_ people. Most times. I knew what they wanted. And I could give it to them. People _liked_ me. I was fun. And clever.”  
  
“You still are.”  
  
“But how can I tell,” Eames says, “without an audience?”  
  
“I’m here.”  
  
“But you love me, so you couldn’t tell.”  
  
“Stop that.”  
  
“Stop what? Stop saying that you love me? You know that already.”  
  
Arthur opens his mouth and then closes it again, rolls onto his other side and wriggles as close to Eames as he can. He would’ve certainly gone mad already, if he was here alone. “How long do you think we’ve been here?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Eames says, “you’re the one who’s been counting. Maybe three or four years.”  
  
Arthur freezes.  
  
“Darling?”  
  
“I thought, maybe three or four months.”  
  
He can almost feel the time shift and bend, only there’s no _time._ Eames pulls away from him, places a hand on the side of his face and looks at him. “No way.”  
  
“I’ve tried to keep track,” Arthur says, but his voice comes out hollow. “Of course it’s impossible, there’s nothing to count, but… it can’t be _years._ ”  
  
“You look older.”  
  
Arthur blinks. “No, I don’t.”  
  
“Yeah,” Eames says, “yes, you do. You have a few grey hairs.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“I can’t see them.”  
  
Eames runs his fingers through Arthur’s hair. “I can.”  
  
“But I’m real,” Arthur says. His voice is trembling, but he can’t make it steady. He can’t make himself do anything, be anything, except lie here in Eames’ bed. “You aren’t imagining me because I’m real, nothing else is in this place is but we are, we’re _real_ , we’re real people, we’re –“  
  
Eames grabs Arthur’s shoulders with firm hands, pushes Arthur onto his back and holds him down by his wrists, sits on his waist, all of his weight holding Arthur down, down, down here. Right here.  
  
“You’re real,” Eames says, his fingernails clinging into the skin on Arthur’s wrists.  
  
Arthur tries to breathe. “Are _you?_ ”  
  
“ _Yes,_ ” Eames almost grunts.  
  
“How do you _know?_ ”  
  
Eames is quiet for a second, then lets go of Arthur’s wrists and starts undressing him instead. “I don’t,” Eames says, pushing Arthur’s boxer onto his thighs, “I don’t _know._ But it’s always like that, isn’t it? We never _know_ we’re real. We just have to believe that we are.”  
  
“I don’t know if I can,” Arthur says, running his palms on Eames’ arms as Eames tries to get rid of his own underwear without climbing off Arthur.  
  
“You have to,” Eames says, throwing his boxers to the floor and leaning down to kiss Arthur on the mouth. “You _have to_ , darling, because you can’t leave me here alone.”  
  
“What if,” Arthur says and takes a deep breath, because Eames is pushing his knees apart and folding them closer to his chest, “what if –“  
  
“Stop that,” Eames says, pushing one finger in. The blunt ache of it isn’t enough.  
  
“What if,” Arthur begins again, _what if I’m not real. What if I’m not really here. What if none of this is real. What if I’m nothing but your -  
  
_“You told me you love me,” Eames says, two fingers in, holding Arthur’s cock in his hand. “You told me you were fucking scared that we’re going to fight and break up and you’re going to end up here alone.”  
  
_With a broken heart_ , Arthur thinks. He’s cold. He’s too cold, and he had thought he’d forgotten what it feels like. “Yeah.”  
  
“I know how it feels,” Eames says, “it’s terrifying, the thought that someone could break your heart is _terrifying._ That’s got to be real.”  
  
Arthur’s eyelids flicker. Maybe there’re years on Eames’ face that he didn’t see before.  
  
“Darling?” Eames asks, pushing Arthur’s knees wider and setting himself in between them.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Eames pushes in, and he keeps telling Arthur that Arthur is real, keeps saying that as he fucks Arthur, nicely at first, but it’s too nice, too soft, too hazy, Arthur begins to think he can’t _feel_ it. So, he asks for more. He digs his fingers into Eames’ back and says, _please, please, please._ Eames tells him he’s real, they both are. He wants to come but can’t. He hasn’t come in a lifetime. There’s nothing but this tension that grows inside of him, filling him from his neck to his toes, and in the end it’s going to fade into nothing, just like that, just like always.  
  
But there’s Eames.  
  
There’s Eames who’s holding Arthur down, even though it must be clear that Arthur’s not going anywhere. And Eames is full of voices and scents and sharp angles and haste and sweat and ridiculous words and above it all, the pet name Arthur thinks he hated in another life, _darling, darling._ He can still imagine Eames. And it's real.  
  
  
**  
  
Arthur thinks about waking up. It feels a lot like dying.  
  
Sometimes, Eames tells him a story about how they are in a different place, in a city full of people, real people, some of whom they know. They’re confused and don’t really know what to do with each other, but they’ll stick together because they’ve forgotten everything else. And even if it begins to feel like a dream, so Eames says sloppily to Arthur’s ear, to Arthur’s mouth, to Arthur’s stomach and armpit and the crook of his hip, it begins to feel like a dream but that doesn’t matter, because Eames loves Arthur. Eames was always going to love Arthur. It’s going to be as real up there than it is down here. They’re going to be alright. And they’re going to have a life together, they’re going to have a home with a fridge full of food that tastes of food, whatever that is like, and they’re going to have friends who come over, they’re going to fight and fuck and get a little bored and then love each other anyway. That’s how it’s going to be.  
  
Sometimes, Arthur thinks _, time, what an odd concept. Maybe it doesn’t exist. Maybe it’s just something we came up with to make sense of living things growing old and dying._  
  
He feels old.  
  
And not completely real. But then again, there’s no way to find out. Every time he asks Eames, Eames says _yes, absolutely, of course darling_ , and kisses him or fucks him or holds his hand a little desperately.  
  
Sometimes it’s difficult to believe there ever was anything besides this: he and Eames, at their home, telling each other stories, and kissing, and holding onto each other until their skin grows numb. Sometimes he thinks he missed something. He’s life, perhaps. But it’s almost fine, because there’s Eames, holding him and saying his name.  
  
And it goes on.


End file.
